“Belt” refers to roads and railways while, paradoxically, “road” refers to sea-lanes together they aim for nothing less than the unification of almost all of Asia and Africa. Projects include ports, airports, rail lines, utilities, industrial centers, highways, and even entire new cities and urban sectors. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013 by Chinese president Xi Jinping, includes hundreds of infrastructure projects financed and constructed in part or in whole by Chinese entities in lands far beyond China’s borders. While that empire faded by the mid-14th century, it gave the world a precursor to the modern-day state of China, which has embarked on its own ambitious-and, to some, unsettling-quest to link a considerable portion of the world through trade. Consolidating ancient Silk Road mercantile connections, it brought currency into widespread use and generally sought win-win trade deals with conquered territories. In addition to the more infamous killing and pillaging conducted by its various hordes, the Mongol Empire, first led by Genghis Khan and later by his grandson Kublai, brought nearly all of Asia, much of the Middle East, and some of Europe under a unified system of trade and commerce in the 13th century.
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